Gas Fumes

Given the partisan nature of Congress today it should be an easy assignment, especially when the topic is gas prices and who’s to blame.

Democrats have been loudly and frequently decrying the price for gas. They’re blaming the White House for being too close to the oil industry and not doing more to ease the pain.

The rhetoric edged up a notch Tuesday when the Senate Commerce Committee held a hearing on a just-released study by the Federal Trade Commission concluding there is no evidence of price gouging or market manipulation in the oil industry, even though gas is more than $3 a gallon in Seattle and much of the country. There were many opinions, most of them incredulous at how the FTC did the job.

So, here we go.

Read the following comments and identify the name and party affiliation of the senator who made it.

”I think there’s something fishy here,” one senator said, asking how prices could soar last year after hurricanes Katrina and Rita, though supplies in much of the country were adequate.

Supply problems from the hurricanes, this prominent senator said, ”were used as a cover to defend bad conduct.”

Still stumped? Here’s more.

”I don’t want to do something crazy. But how about the oil companies taking a little less profit while these (price) anomalies work themselves out. The American people are agitated. The industry should show some restraint or we will have to act and the results are not going to be pretty.”
By now the answer should be as balmy water off Mississippi’s Gulf Coast. The comments and opinions were offered by Sen. Trent Lott, R-Miss., stalwart Republican and former Senate Majority Leader.

And he wasn’t alone.

Here are some comments from another Republican senator to FTC Chairwoman Deborah Platt Majoras, who appeared before the committee.

”You shouldn’t give the impression to the American people you’ve done a broad and thorough investigation” of price gouging, this senator said. ”It’s an inadequate and sub par approach to price gouging. … It’s a very limited version of what constitutes price gouging and it doesn’t give a real and true picture” of the hardship high gas prices are causing.

These are the words of Sen. Olympia Snowe, R-Maine, known for her mild manner and moderate views – except, it seems, when it comes to high gas prices.

Like many lawmakers, Lott and Snowe are frustrated by questions that remain unanswered and prices that remain high.

But just like expensive gas, there was predictability, too.

Democrats offered the most heated and aggressive criticism of the FTC report and the White House’s response to high prices, Sen. Maria Cantwell, D-Wash., among them.

The FTC, Cantwell fumed, ”are just apologists” for the oil industry. ”They didn’t ask the right questions.”

Majoras also told the committee that the FTC ”cannot say that federal price gouging legislation would produce a net benefit to consumers.”

The Republican National Committee countered with a web ad accusing Democrats of supporting higher gas prices. It includes a ”Gas Calculator” that allows anyone to see for himself how much higher prices would be if Democrats prevail.

“The party led by oilmen has failed to do anything to lower gas prices, and now they are once again misleading the American people with a pathetic attempt to distort the facts,” Democratic National Committee spokeswoman Karen Finney said.